British prime minister Theresa May called a snap election after only 11 months as leader of the Conservative Party in a moment of what many will now call madness. May confidently gambled that she could in one fell swoop destroy what was left of the Labour Party, consolidate power ...read more
On Christmas Day, Donald Trump touted his sheer awesomeness and how great he's made the world just by being him. To say that this is a new level of hubris would be an understatement. It's going to be even more astonishing when Trump takes credit for the low unemployment rate in ...read more
If you choose to look at the world through the lens of a particular ideology, you won't ever see reality as it is. When it comes to the lens of economic ideology, some schools of thought are so toxic that when applied to human societies, the wreak untold havoc. In the UK, the ...read more
Paul Krugman weighs in on the latest round of insane German/Euro demands on beleaguered Greece: Eurogroup list of demands is madness. The trending hashtag ThisIsACoup is exactly right. This goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national ...read more
by Timothy Woods Syriza, the governing party in Greece came to power at the beginning of 2015 as a desperate Greek people did away with the dominance of the austerity-imposing parties and opted for a stab in the dark with a new, radical leftist government. This didn’t go down ...read more
As the future of Greece hangs in the balance over its debt obligations, the powerhouse German economy continues to surge. While Germans are going shopping, Greeks are raiding forests to find wood to heat their homes. The dichotomy isn't exactly unique - there are rich ...read more
If you haven't already read it, check out Kojo Koram's excellent piece on the mythology behind collective debt. In it, Kojo argues that the concept of debt is ruthlessly used by those in power to maintain and solidify a massively stratified social structure based on ever widening ...read more
Facts can be a real encumbrance when your trying to enforce austerity on the impoverished masses. Adherents of the 'keep-cutting-until-it-grows philosophy' of economics suffered a blow last week as the story emerged that a famed pro-austerity publication by Harvard professors ...read more
By Beverly Bandler Regarding the Austerity Scandal, I wonder if you are as angry as you should be. I am outraged. This is indeed a significant story that the corporate mainstream media appears to be ignoring. One reader tells me that he has the impression that the ...read more
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Reuters: The U.S. economy could take a big hit from automatic government spending cuts even if Congress only leaves them in place for a month or two. The cuts were meant to be so painful that they would force Congress to find a more ...read more
Welcome to this week's edition of The Daily Banter Mailbag! Today, Bob, Ben and Chez discuss austerity and Keynesian economics, the tea party and political fisticuffs. The questions: 1) Do you think the Pan-European strikes and protests, and/or the decisive de-facto rejection ...read more
By Bob Cesca: If you haven't seen the stellar political documentary, The War Room, which follows James Carville and George Stephanopoulos during the 1992 Clinton campaign for president, you should absolutely check it out. There's one scene in particular that popped into my ...read more
Paul Krugman sums up the German economic policy of austerity that is causing immense misery throughout Europe: Why do it, then? Partly it’s because Europe is still operating on the false theory that this is essentially a fiscal issue; partly it’s to assuage the Germans, who ...read more
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Reuters: MADRID (Reuters) - Protesters clashed with police in Spain's capital on Tuesday as the government prepared a new round of unpopular austerity measures for the 2013 budget to be announced on Thursday. Thousands gathered in Neptune ...read more
The Daily Banter headline grab (from the Independent): The Bank of England today appeared to rule out an early cut in interest rates to boost the flagging economy despite slashing its growth forecasts for this year to zero. In its quarterly inflation report, the Bank admitted ...read more
This is getting quite boring, repeating over and over and over again that austerity measures are hurting rather than helping countries mired in recession. Q2 GDP growth figures came in for the UK economy at a shocking -0.7 per cent, far worse than predicted (the general consensus ...read more
By Ben Cohen: The major argument behind implementing austerity measures during an economic crisis is to make sure governments stay credit worthy and are able to borrow from the bond market in the future. Just think of it like you would a personal credit card - if you've been ...read more
By Ben Cohen: The field of economics is often referred to as a 'junk science', mostly because it tries to explain human behavior in mathematical terms. This is almost impossible - humans are emotional and irrational, thus predicting their behavior accurately is harder than ...read more
By Ben Cohen: Europe has bailed out Greece (again) in a historic deal that guarantees the bankrupt nation 130 million euros. From the NY Times: Greece finally secured its second giant bailout early Tuesday after euro zone finance ministers agreed to save it from bankruptcy in ...read more
Paul Krugman explains why despite the very encouraging job numbers this month, the US economy is by no means in the clear. Who is to blame for the continued instability? The supply siders obsessed with deficits and small government: Very early in this slump — basically, as soon ...read more
Another nail in the coffin for neo liberalism in Britain (from the Guardian): An extra £5bn of capital investment, funded by spending cuts elsewhere, will form the centrepiece of an overall £30bn national infrastructure programme due to be announced by George Osborne on ...read more
Paul Krugman dispels the myth that Ireland is recovering from its prolonged recession due to a rise in pharma exports and austerity measures: So, some cold water. First of all, eventual recovery after years of Depression-level unemployment is a strange definition of success. ...read more
George Osborne The British Conservative government has long argued that deregulation and austerity measures are key to Britain's economic health. According to supply siders David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne, everyone must go through pain in order to rebalance the ...read more
Continuing the tradition of stripping money from the state sector, the Conservative government is facing mounting resistance from the British public who have not bought in to the narrative that public sector pensions need 'reforming' (code word for 'defunding'). Reports the ...read more
